IMPRESSION

Hi all,

Totally green when it comes to RaspberryPi (aka RPi), but here goes:

Just got my RaspberryPi up and running with RiscOS, but I would like to use Impression on it, and I do have that on my iMac in my VirtualRPC section. I use my old Mac keyboard, and that works well, too!

Haven’t really the foggiest about what will run on a RPi, or what will not: Can I just move it over to the SD card, and start using it?! I have the Virtual on a separate hard disc, so would it be possible to connect it directly to the RPi?! It has its own PSU, of course!

Any help very much appreciated!

From a sunny, and very hot, Sweden, all the best,

Tord

As the RPi is 32-bit, you will need Aemulor to run Impression.

Thanks for a quick reply, David!

Now where does I get Aemulor. Let’s search the internet!

Tord

http://buyit.spellings.net/products.php?cat=2

Thanks, Wouter & David!

Now, how do I move my Impression in my VirtualAcorn directory, to the RPi?! Other than that, the RPi feels very much like my old RiscPC, long gone! About as fast, but I long after a harddisc, can any be used?!

Tord

You can’t ‘move’ an installed copy of Impression unless it is one of the last versions released, otherwise the copy protection stops it from working.
A USB hard drive can be added but it will much slower than a drive on a VRPC installation.

Thanks, Chris, for the quick answer.

I have Publish+ as well, but the same copy protection problems apply, right?!

It affects all versions. If your version ends .13
IIRC
5.13 Publisher Plus
4.13 Publisher

Then that was the last ever version and it will copy after installation. .12 & .11 may also be copyable.

I do have an external 1TB drive with my VirtualAcorn in a folder, together with various back-ups for my OS X computer. Could I use that attached to my RPi?!

Tord

I seem to remember a utility somewhere that would re-key your copy of Impression to your new boot sequence if you had to replace !Boot and had lost your original discs. !Rst_Impsn was it called?

http://www.smartfart.co.uk/Software/riscos/dgm/RstImp.zip ?

I have 4.13 of Publisher and 5.13 of Pub+ and they both copy without problem. I have copied them to usb drives on both BB and PB and they both work fine (under Aemulor, of course).

Wouter: That looks like the one!

I can’t resist to point at OvationPro. It’s far superior to Impression (mind you, here’s a formerly heavy Impression user speaking), while it has a near-perfect built in Impression importer. OvationPro is commercial (I believe it costs £150), but it’s by far the best investment I ever made during my RISC OS decades. There’s even a native Windows version!

I would second what Paul has said. OvationPro is a lovely capable piece of software, and as long as you stick with document feature level 4¹, switching files between RISC OS and Windows is a doodle. Both versions look and feel the same, and the Windows version includes an aliasing system to translate “Corpus”, “Homerton”, “Sassoon”, and “Trinity” – so you can refer to fonts by their RISC OS names and it’ll just work when opened under RISC OS.

The price is £100 for the RISC OS version, and £60 for the Windows version if you have the RISC OS one.

RISC OS demo version: http://www.davidpilling.net/ovationpro/opr.html (top of the page)

Windows demo and read-only viewer version: http://www.davidpilling.info/cd/main.html

¹ Document feature level 4 is the default and is compatible between platforms. Document feature level 5 adds features such as Unicode support, which are not (yet?) fully available under RISC OS. It is in the user guide (http://www.davidpilling.info/cd/DavidPilling/Documentation/Pdf/15_custom.pdf) on page 12.